BSRO, which operates Firestone Complete Auto Care, Tires Plus, ExpertTire and Wheel Works, opened 68 new automotive service locations across the USA in 2009, creating more than 800 new jobs. The new stores feature updated waiting rooms and consultation pods and offer improved bay spacing for customer vehicles.
The Aiken County, South Carolina passenger car and light commercial vehicle tyre manufacturing plant operated by Bridgestone Americas Tire Operations (BATO) has earned LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Silver Certification from the US Green Building Council. This certification, explains BATO, recognises outstanding environmental building design and utilisation, and is rarely given to existing manufacturing sites. The Aiken County facility is the second BATO tyre plant to gain LEED certification – the company’s Warren County, Tennessee truck and bus tyre factory earned this distinction in November 2008. The two plants are the first LEED certified tyre manufacturing facilities in the US, and indeed the world.
Tyre tripling, inserting two used tyres inside another one, has been increasingly adopted as a method of saving space and achieving transportation cost savings. To give a real life example, up to around 1,600 tyres can normally be fitted into a standard container. Up to 3,500 “tripled” tyres can be fit in the same space. According to Arne Blaes, the proprietor of a company which manufactures tripling machinery, the process was invented by Africans who in most cases carried out the strenuous tripling process by hand.
(Tire Review) Patty Fleischmann, co-owner of Community Tire & Auto Repair in Phoenix, talked about the dealership’s efforts to address the needs of female customers in a segment on a recent airing of The Chat Room, a local program produced by AZTV. Patty, wife of Howard Fleischmann, talked about the business’ certification as an AskPatty.com certified female friendly tyre and service shop and what female consumers need to know about getting their vehicles properly cared for. She also talked about the value Community Tire has received from participating in the AskPatty.com for Tire Dealers training and certification program, and what it has meant for all of its customers. You can view the video on tyrepress.com below.
Titan Tire Corporation has attained the new ISO 9001:2008 certification with Design Standards for the company’s facilities in Des Moines, Iowa; Freeport, Illinois; Bryan, Ohio; Dublin and Pendergrass, Georgia. “Independent testing is an important step in fulfilling our customer satisfaction goals,” said Titan Tire president Bill Campbell. “This certification affirms the quality of the design, manufacture, assembly and distribution of Titan tyres, tyre and wheel assemblies and brakes and actuators.” The company has held ISO certification since 1994.
Italian OTR retreading specialist Gomme Piave reports having been granted ISO 9001:2008 certificated through TÜV Austria. The company also states that from now on it can supply all tyres in its entire retread range with a treatment that protects the casing structure from the effects of hazardous substances, thereby making them particularly suitable for use in industrial waste disposal duties that pose a risk of oil contamination.
Efforts to reduce pollution have earned the Bridgestone Americas Tire Operations (BATO) factory in Aiken County, South Carolina an award from the state’s Department of Health and Environmental Control. The “Spare the Air” award for positive environmental impact was given in recognition of staff activities, such as carpooling, the use of motorcycles or hybrid vehicles and volunteering an community environmental events, along with plant innovations such as the utilisation of volatile organic compound reducing cementless ‘Innovative Tire Building Technology’ and the use of emission-free hydrogen powered forklifts.
Toyo Tire USA Corp. has received re-certification to the latest ISO 9001:2008 management system standards. The certificate acknowledges Toyo Tire U.S.A. Corp. for sales, warranty service and end user technical support. Toyo Tire U.S.A. Corp. was first certified under ISO standards in 1997. The ISO 9001:2008 re-certification affirms Toyo Tires’ dedication to meeting the international standard for customer satisfaction as well as the standard for continual organizational improvement. “As a company, Toyo Tires strives to meet the strictest standards for delivering both product quality as well as the utmost in customer support,” said Yasushi Takagi, president and CEO of Toyo Tire U.S.A. Corp. “We are proud to meet the requirements for the ISO 9001:2008 certification.”
The 300-acre Freedom Wildlife Habitat and Refuge at the Bridgestone Americas tyre plant in Wilson, North Carolina, was recently re-certified under the Wildlife Habitat Council's Corporate Lands for Learning and Wildlife at Work programs, says a report from Tire Review. “We are very excited to attain Wildlife Habitat Council re-certification,” said Jim Pridgen, Wilson plant manager. “Our habitat gives us a great opportunity to reach out to the local community and young people with a hands-on environmental message.”
Continental AG says its welcomes the tyre labelling system agreed upon by various EU bodies. While the system must pass a final vote in the European Parliament before it is given the official green light, the German tyre manufacturer looks forward to its November 2012 introduction and holds the opinion that the extra costs manufacturers face through labelling will pay off in the long term.
Infinity is now openly promoting both its light and heavy ranges as retreadable products after Bandag issued the following official certification: “In conjunction with Bandag and its distributors, Infinity truck tyres have received some very good reports for the quality of the casings which have recently been retreaded.” According to retreading systems and material supplier and franchiser, Infinity casings have “reasonable integrity” and “the quality of the casing is good”. As a result the Bandag certification says: “Infinity casings are fully suitable for retreading through Bandag dealers.” All Infinity truck tyres are manufactured to international standards under strong operational quality control systems and all Infinity Truck radial tyres bear “E” and “s” markings,” the statement explained.
Sapphire Energy Recovery, the tyre recovery and waste processing company owned by Lafarge Cement, has gained BSI certification for three management system standards: quality, environment and health and safety. Certificates for ISO 9001 (for quality management), ISO 14001 (for environmental compliance) and OHSAS 18001 (for health and safety) were handed out to members of the Sapphire team by BSI representative Colin Rushmere at a recent ceremony held to mark the occasion at Lafarge Cement’s head office in Solihull.
S-mark legislation limiting the sound levels emitted by tyres won’t not take effect until March 2010. According to an NTDA e-zine published this afternoon, the revised deadline comes after the Department of Transport reported that there has been “a delay in putting into place the statutory instrument which is required for the new s-marking regulations to become law.” In short, there won’t be any means of enforcing the new law in the UK until March 2010.
While the top level executives at Continental AG, Schaeffler Group and the panel of banks they owe huge sums of money to slog it out over who will run the companies, for many who work within their subsidiaries it is business as usual. And while one of the fiercest battles in German corporate history rages at the upper echelons of the business, Conti’s in-car division is apparently doing something right. According to a report released today by Frost & Sullivan, Continental’s AutolinQ in-vehicle connectivity and infotainment platform is set to “revolutionise the automotive world, ushering in new business models that are simpler, more flexible, and better set to maximise payoffs for all players along the telematics value chain.” However, questions of connectivity, the overall selling model, cross industry collaboration and application types must be ironed out first.
MIRA, the leading automotive design, development and certification consultancy, has chosen a Hofmann geodyna 6900p wheel balancer for its vehicle dynamics laboratory. The geodyna 6900p wheel balancer features a number of patented innovations, including virtual plane measurement to ensure accurate balance results that are insensitive to ambient conditions such as temperature, humidity, fatigue and overload. In addition, it also includes a so-called “WeightMiser” function which allows removal of sufficient vibration from a tyre and wheel by applying a lower amount of weight than a normal balance function recommends, thereby reducing the amount of costly balance weights required.
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